1kigYVS

luntly the extent of control physicians expected to have
over women’s bodies, and indeed over their entire beings:
As a body who practice among women, we have
constituted ourselves, as it were[,] the guardians of
their interests, and in many cases[,] the custodians
of their honor. We are[,] in fact, the stronger and they
the weaker. They are obliged to believe all that we tell
them[;] we[,] therefore, may be said to have them at
our mercy. 2
Even today, outdated claims about sport participation
damaging women’s bodies continue to surface. For example,
in 2009, female ski jumpers attempted to be included in the
Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games program, and in
response, Gian-Franco Kasper, President of the International
Ski Federation, indicated that the reason women should not
participate in ski jumping is because it could result in damage
to their uteri or lead to infertility. These ideas were presented
without any actual supporting medical evidence, and neither
Kasper nor others of his ilk expressed any concern that male
ski jumpers might damage their reproductive organs or risk
infertility. It is not difficult to find other examples of “protection”
of women athletes’ bodies: rules prohibit women’s ice
hockey players from body checking, and in speed skating and
cross country skiing, women are restricted from competing
in the longer distances allowed in the men’s competitions.
What these double standards show is that women’s bodies
continue to be viewed as frail and incompatible with “men’s”
sports. Women who challenge these double standards are
often regarded as bad athletes and bad women.
Women athletes have also suffered discrimination when
they have been seen as exhibiting ‘mannish’ characteristics in
body or behavior. Writing about the historical intertwining
of gender, sexuality, and sport, Susan Cahn has examined
medical studies on women and physical exertion in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some medical
experts of that period argued that physical activity would
unleash wild sexual desire in women, while others claimed
it would provide a healthy outlet for sexual desire. However,
there was no disagreement among the experts when it came to
their belief that supposed female masculinity or “mannishness”
equated to sexual unattractiveness and deviance. Initially
“mannishness” implied being unable to capture male attention,
but later it also came to connote the absence of desire
for men. Cahn labels both conditions “heterosexual failure,”
meaning a failure to adhere to cultural heterosexual norms
for body and behavior. Cahn argues further that the medical
field’s preoccupation with sexual deviance contributed to the
twentieth-century medicalization of homosexuality and the
marking of lesbianism as pathological. Given this, and the
accompanying connection of mannishness and athleticism, it
is unsurprising that a general stereotype of all female athletes
as lesbians was firmly in place shortly after World War II. 3
Babe Didrikson, American boxer, shown (left) warming up at Art McGovern’s Gym in New
York City, 1933, and (right) dressing up according to feminine expectations, 1932. AP Images
Women athletes could counter this stereotyping and
backlash only by changing “heterosexual failure” to “success”
through demonstrated allegiance to mainstream heterosexuality.
Cahn presents the story of Babe Didrikson as a perfect
role model of “conversion” from ugly athlete to happy
heterosexual homemaker:
In the early 1930s the press had ridiculed the
tomboyish track star for her “hatchet face,” “door-stop
jaw,” and “button-breasted” chest. After quitting track,
Didrikson dropped out of the national limelight, married
professional wrestler George Zaharias in 1938,
and then staged a spectacular athletic comeback as
a golfer in the late 1940s and 1950s. Fascinated by
her personal transformation and then, in the 1950s,
moved by her battle with cancer, journalists gave
Didrikson’s comeback extensive coverage and helped
make her a much-loved popular figure. In reflecting
on her success, however, sportswriters spent at least as
much time on Didrikson’s love life as her golf stroke.
Headlines blared, “Babe Is a Lady Now: The world’s
most amazing athlete has learned to wear nylons and
cook for her huge husband,” and reporters gleefully
described how “along came a great big he-man wrestler
and the Babe forgot all her man-hating chatter.” 4
Even though Didrikson was said to be “the world’s
most amazing athlete,” society’s focus fell on her “greater”
accomplishment—escaping her mannishness by leaving
sport behind for the world of heterosexual subservience.
The unjust and connected stigmatization of lesbians
and of women athletes continues to plague women’s sport
in our own time, as evinced by lack of media coverage and
pressure on women athletes to project a heterosexual image.
13
(continued on next page)